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Confidentiality

As in any other health care facility, all of your health information in considered private and confidential and is governed by state and federal regulations. It is not released outside the Health Center without your specific permission, except in serious and potentially life threatening situations, as listed below. The Health Center operates in an integrated health and wellness model and your health information may be shared with any Health Services professional when clinically indicated and if your clinician determines that such sharing is in your best interest. Any specific reservations or concerns that a student has about such sharing will be respectfully considered. The health information records within the Health Center are managed and organized in a way that also protects and respects privacy and confidentiality.

There are, however, certain exceptions to these rules on privacy and confidentiality which you should be aware of as you enter a treatment relationship with the Health Center. Information concerning your contact with us may be made available to others in the following circumstances:

In the event of a hospitalization or health care emergency, information will ordinarily be shared with college officials and may be shared with your family.

If your clinician determines that you pose a direct threat of harm to yourself or to another person, we may disclose information in an effort to prevent the harm from happening. This may include, for example, contacting local emergency officials, college officials, or your family.

If college officials need to determine whether you pose a direct threat of harm to yourself or another person, we may disclose pertinent information needed to make that determination.

In the event you are experiencing health related issues that are substantially interfering with your ability to successfully participate as a student at Williams, we may disclose limited information to college officials in order to facilitate the consideration of academic accommodations or other supports to remedy that situation.

If you report information indicating that a child, or a disabled or elderly person is suffering abuse or neglect, your clinician may be required to report the information to law enforcement or other authorities.

A court order could require us to release information contained in your records or could require a clinician to testify in a judicial proceeding.

In all of these exceptions to confidentiality, every attempt will be made to contact you and discuss these potential disclosures of information, if possible, to procure your cooperation and consent.

If you have a particular request about your particular situation as it relates to confidentiality, you can include it in your personal health care record and we will treat that request with great consideration and respect if or when we are called upon to make any decisions about any emergency disclosures.